Abstract

John Stuart Mill was raised to be the Lenin of the revolutionary movement that we remember as utilitarianism, and whose members at the time were called the “Philosophical Radicals”. And as many philosophers know, Mill's youth was brought to a close by a bout of depression – what he called his “Mental Crisis” – that amounted to a crisis of commitment. Sandwiched between his training and his first not‐exactly‐breakdown (of three) we find two epiphanies that get little or no attention, and I want to go some distance towards rectifying that omission. I think they will explain Mill's Crisis, and why he never became the Lenin of utilitarianism – but also why utilitarianism turned out not to be the sort of movement that needed a Lenin.